


The Watcher's Vigil

by ElDiablito_SF



Series: The Fabulous Adventures in Immortality of the Vampire Aramis and the Man Who Named the Mountain, Volume V, Missing Scenes [3]
Category: Les Trois Mousquetaires | The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas, d'Artagnan Romances (Three Musketeers Series) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greek Mythology, Gen, Immortality AU Timestamp, M/M, Our Hero the Grigori, Someone is Very Dead A Lot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-21
Updated: 2017-04-21
Packaged: 2018-10-22 00:24:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10685973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: Athos dies of a broken heart (again) and Grimaud the Grigori reflects on his role as a guardian.  Chronologically set between volumes II and III, but references the flashbacks of volume IV.





	The Watcher's Vigil

**Author's Note:**

> Audience! We promised you there would be more Things™! Well, here is one such thing.

**Chartres, 1629**

And on the day that Athena came to him in arms, bearing proofs of cruel outrage, the Thunderous Father called the Grigorim to himself and said: “Go now, you shall be Watchers over my children. My eyes shall be your eyes and my hands shall be your hands. When they are needful, they shall not want. And when they are in pain, they shall not suffer except that this suffering be also borne by you.”

To divide one’s suffering with one’s Kyrios was ever the Grigori’s destiny. To watch him grow, to give what was needful, to tend to his wounds, to obey him. To love him. _My eyes are Zeus’ eyes and my hands are Zeus’ hands._ The Grigori moved the washcloth down the pale, sunken cheeks of the departed demigod before him. He had not brought him comfort in his final moments; he never could. And had his hands been Zeus’ own hands, would his Kyrios had shrunk from their embrace even more than he already did?

The sheets had been covered in brown stains from the latest bloodletting. The demigod’s eyes had accused him of betrayal. The demigod’s lips formed only one fervent prayer. _Aramis_.

Aramis was what was needful. The Grigori always provided that which the Kyrios needed. Surely, he could have gone back to the Cathedral at Chartres and dragged the kicking, biting, squealing Wallachian abomination back to his master’s bedside to stop his heart from breaking.

He did not.

Grimaud had wetted the washcloth and ran it over his master’s brow again, wiping at the stubborn droplets of sweat that had not evaporated since Athos’ skin had cooled. His soul was no longer in torment, yet his body still bore the last marks of his suffering. The cuts of his forearms that would now never have chance to heal. The dark circles around his eyes which nevermore would lighten.

“Why didn’t he come?” The last, desperate invocation, before the lips moved no more.

Grimaud knelt at his master’s bedside and placed his head against the sheet that covered his shins. He pressed his lips over the hard bone below his master’s knee, he wrapped his fingers around the soles of his master’s feet, he shut his eyes, and two large tears streaked down his face to soak the modest linen. He had borne his master’s suffering the best he could, and now that it was finally over, the Grigori wept.

***

The first time it had happened, the Grigori had dressed the body for his Kyrios’ final journey and was about to commit him to the flames when a golden chariot appeared before him.

“Surely, you do not wish to return to Olympus again, Grigori. To serve at the beck and call of the gods, as the lowest among us? What would you give to have your Kyrios amongst the living again?”

The Grigori had set his jaw against the taunting words of War. “Haven’t you done enough, Ares son of Zeus?”

“I have done what needed to be done, no more, no less than you. Would it not be preferable to you to have him back? Would you not rather remain here, among foolish mortals, your Kyrios’ Keeper for a few centuries longer? Or do you covet Hebe’s job of Cup Bearer?”

The Grigori straightened out and looked the God of War into his flame-colored eyes. He placed his bony finger over the breastbone of the demigod and poked. “His _heart_ broke. He’s well and truly dead. Such was your Mother’s will.”

“My Mother’s will was that he live and suffer. And once she is reminded of it, the gates of Elysium shall not be able to keep your Kyrios from returning.”

The Grigori inclined his head to the side. “Go on,” he beckoned the golden deity before him.

“Take his ashes to the top of Olympus, and there, upon the sacred altar, burn a sacrificial cake in Hera’s name.”

“What _kind_ of cake?”

The God of War sighed in exasperation. “Are you going to remember this?”

***

The second time was nothing like the first time.

It was _Alexander_ who had been needed, but Alexander was no more. “Don’t bring me back this time!” his Kyrios had begged. He expired so quickly, as if his heart having once accustomed to breaking could withstand that kind of suffering no more.

“Be a man, Kyrios.” Empty words. His Kyrios had ever been a man.

Sleep now, sweet son of heaven. The Grigori untangled Athos’ limbs that had contracted around him like a cocoon, and brushed his long curls from his brow. How handsome he still looked in death. No wonder War had wet himself with craven jealousy the first time he set his snout upon him. No wonder War’s black-winged twin had set her talons into Eirene’s son.

“Go now, and hurt no more,” he had whispered into the demigod’s deaf ear. “I shall give you coins for the ferryman. I shall miss you, Kyrios.”

A gust of wind tore through the air and the sands of Babylon shook beneath the powerful hooves of the golden charioteer.

“No,” the Grigori hissed, wrapping his body over his ward’s. “Be gone, you foul fiend! Even Herakles had been allowed to enter Elysium at last!”

“What Grigorim nonsense is this?” Ares snarled. “Do you really want to test me, _Watcher_? Give me his body and get in the chariot.”

The Grigori’s body had still been that of a young man back then and he straightened to his full height and faced Ares as if he too had been a fearless warrior, just like his master who now lay at his feet.

“Leave him alone, Hera’s whelp! I will not let you have him!” It was long before he had learned to watch his tongue for fear of losing it.

The lash of Ares’ whip hurt all the more for arriving so unexpectedly, although, in retrospect, he should have expected nothing less. “Insubordinate cur! I’ll see you condemned to the torments of Tartarus for this! I’ll see all the Grigorim banished underground. And so help me, I will find a way to get to him in the Elysian Fields and make sure he does not have a moment of peace in all eternity. Is that what you want?”

His cheek burned where the flaming lash had landed. “No… that isn’t what I want.”

“In the chariot. Now.” The God of War had descended and picked up the lifeless body with his own arms, while the Grigori climbed into the chariot on shaking limbs.

His Kyrios may never trust him again. May never forgive him.

The barren rocks of Mt. Athos were pitiless. “You’re his Watcher. _Watch this._ ” The Grigori had crawled back out from his hiding place as the sky became illuminated with the soft hues of Aurora, and also by the meteoric rise of the God of War’s chariot, as it sped along the arch of the heaven’s vault, fleeing the scene of the crime that was perpetuated before the Grigori’s eyes each night. “Perhaps next time you will watch him _better_.”

The chains that held the demigod were unbreakable and he hung from them in a helpless swoon. _Let your suffering be my suffering_ , the Grigori prayed, going about fulfilling his duty the best he could. Tending to the fresh wounds, fetching the cool spring water for his master to drink while he recuperated, holding on to him in a fitful sleep in the hope that his meager touch could bring a drop of comfort.

“I am not Love’s bitch,” the parched lips opened and closed.

“I know you’re not, Kyrios.”

“But I saw him there, you know. In Elysium.”

“Whom, Kyrios?”

“Alexander.”

The Grigori pressed his lips to his master’s perspiration soaked forehead. “Hush, Kyrios. You must not say such things. _He_ will hear you.”

“He was happy. They both were.”

“Master…”

“I will never be happy, will I, Grigori?”

***

Back in Chartres, the Watcher dropped the washcloth and picked up his master’s hand, bringing it to his lips. Ares was far away. He was not coming. Why then, did he burn so much to disobey again?

“He’s still here. Your flittermouse,” Grimaud whispered into his master’s ear. “He loves you as surely as you love him. And you were wrong, Kyrios, do you remember? You _can_ be happy again. With him. You _have_ been happy with him.” Grimaud straightened out. “I will fetch him for you.”

He took a step towards the exit. His heart, such as it was, gave him no peace. He would loathe to return to Olympus after the strange kind of freedom he had found with Kyrios on earth. And if he was cursed to suffer as his master suffered, then so should the Wallachian abomination that broke that beautiful, tender heart that beat only for him. Fucking Aramis.

His master would return once again, to walk as a god among mere mortals. He would return restored, glorious, cleansed of the pain of the intervening centuries. And Grimaud would once more assume his rightful place at his master’s side. And the Transdanubian leech would _suffer_.

Grimaud bounded down the stairs with alacrity and veered with feigned civility towards their tavern keep. “Good evening, sirrah. Would you mind lending me an ax?”

***

The Wallachian abomination stood gaunt and pale and hooded in the moonlight, like the ghost of some Eleusinian priestess, and just as mad too, only without the help of any magical herbs. Its nostrils flared as Grimaud continued to coil the wrappings around his Kyrios’ naked body.

“Brandy?” he nodded towards the leech who had sucked his master dry, and the priest of Hades handed him one of the bottles they had brought with them all the way from Chartres.

The stone slab would serve quite well for the funeral pyre. To think, the foolish abomination had originally offered to gather wood. Wood - ha! How was one to differentiate the ashes of his Kyrios from the ashes of local birch trees.

Still, Grimaud had rather enjoyed himself on their clandestine journey to this clearing in the middle of nowhere, for nothing cheered him quite as much as seeing the abomination mute and miserable as his own Kyrios’ corpse.

“He called for you, you know,” he had prattled along, as they carried Athos’ body into the forest. “He suffered very greatly, over some period of time, you see. The doctor had _bled_ him. You can imagine what his thoughts were on that matter, I’m sure.”

The abomination’s teeth ground together audibly, yet he made no reply with the stoicism worthy of Zeno of Citium himself.

“ _Why did he not come for me?_ he’d said. You see, it was not so much that you had left him, but the fact that you had not returned that killed him. Not that he’d want me to be telling you any of this. Embarrassing, rather.”

His master’s bat refused to be baited, it seemed. Then again, learning that your perfidy had resulted in your beloved’s death was bound to make an impression, even on the darkest of souls. And the flitterfiend had always claimed to have two of those. Such hubris, such effrontery!

Grimaud sprinkled the liquor all over the wrappings and placed two coins over the indentations of his master’s eye sockets. “I need his hand back now, Master Aramis.”

The abomination clutched the severed and mutilated appendage to its heaving chest.

“Come now. He’s going to need it when he’s resurrected.”

What was the bat going to do with it, otherwise? Wear it around his neck perhaps, like St. Anastasius and his millstone?

The grim keepsake was pressed against the abomination’s lips with the fervor and piety quite appropriate of his priestly garb. Yes, the Wallachian demon loved his Kyrios still. Grimaud took the hand from the bloodsucker’s weakening grasp and tossed it onto the stone slab before touching the torch to the liquor-soaked wrappings.

The demigod’s mortal coil went up in flames, broken heart and all, while the Grigori recited the funeral hymn over the pyre. Then he shut his eyes and spoke a private prayer of his own, “Forgive me for my disobedience, Kyrios. Know that I do this out of love for you.”

He opened his eyes again to behold the flames reflected in the blackness of the Aramisian souls. Ares’ eyes too glowed with a fierce flame like this. This one was strong enough to battle Ares, the Grigori had decided, if it came to that.

“We are going on a long sea voyage, Master Aramis,” Grimaud stated with barely contained glee. “If I recall correctly, Monsieur L’Abbé does not much enjoy the sea. Perhaps you’d care for a proper repast before we depart? I can fetch you a farmer.”

If Grimaud had not known the bloodsucking leech to be incapable of great histrionics, unlike his master, he might have half-expected him to lunge himself into the pyre, to be immolated forever with his lost love.

“I’m not hungry,” Aramis whispered, and knelt onto the dewy grass. The hood fell over his brow and obscured the flames reflected in his obsidian eyes.

“Not hungry,” Grimaud snickered. “Well, now I _have_ lived long enough to have heard it all.”

 _And, not to brag,_ the Grigori thought to himself, _but I have lived for a rather long time._


End file.
